by Molly Gilmore for OLY ARTS
If Neighborhood 3: Requisition of Doom sounds more like the name of a horror video game than the title of a play, there’s good reason: Neighborhood 3, opening Thursday at South Puget Sound Community College, is a play about a video game—a creepy one in which reality and virtual reality merge. Teenagers in a cookie-cutter subdivision are playing a game in which zombies inhabit the online version of their own neighborhood. “The horrifying part is that the characters can’t really tell what’s real anymore or where they are in space,” said drama professor Lauren Love, who’s directing.
Jennifer Haley’s 2008 dark comedy isn’t just funny yet frightening fluff, Love said. “For all of the fun we’re going to have with this show, it also raises some really interesting questions about the moment we’re in,” she said. “Being able to tell what we’re looking at and distinguishing what’s real and not real has become more and more relevant.”
Love, who started teaching at SPSCC in the fall, said the show is already attracting attention on campus. “There seems to be a lot more buzz and interest about this play than others I’ve done at other institutions and here as well,” she said.
Playing various teens and parents inhabiting Neighborhood 3’s vignettes are students Gabrielle Forest, Ethan Grabowski and Autumn James Hambrick; SPSCC English instructor Jacqui Cain; and Brian Graff of Olympia. The Black Box Theater will be configured with a stage running down the center of the room, something like the catwalk in a fashion show. “We’ll be playing with the visual field,” Love said. “We can also create close-ups for more people. We’ll be playing with a cinematic perspective.”
What: Neighborhood 3: Requisition of Doom
Where: Kenneth J Minnaert Center for the Arts, SPSCC,
2011 Mottman Rd., Olympia
When: 7 p.m. Thursday – Saturday, March 2-4;
2 p.m. Sunday, March 5
How much: $7-$10
Learn more: 360-753-8586 | OlyTix